Reviews with content warning for Racism - A Beautifully Foolish Endeavor

Highly recommend the audiobook.

I think the first book had to do a lot of unfortunate fame- and internet-related groundwork to make this book possible, so for those who felt let down by An Absolutely Remarkable Thing, I urge you to continue with this sequel. I liked the first one fine, but this one is indeed remarkable.

I'm a sucker for an ensemble cast, and the plot offers a lot of insight into current affairs. Occasionally a bit too close for comfort – akin to reading 1984 in 1984, I imagine. A timely and skillfully executed science fiction story.

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anagrace's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging emotional funny hopeful inspiring mysterious reflective tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

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lara_r's review against another edition

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adventurous emotional funny tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.25

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lenaricharz's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark emotional funny hopeful inspiring mysterious reflective tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

5.0

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bisexualwentworth's review against another edition

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Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

This is a really good book. It's better than the first one in a lot of ways. I also liked it slightly less.

I loved the use of multiple points of view, especially because April was such a specific type of narrator in the first book. April is also a lot less interesting now that she's marked as even more specialTM. Maya, Miranda, and Andy are more compelling characters who have a lot to offer the story as narrators. However, none of their stories would have been capable of carrying a whole book, which is why it's so great that we got all of them.

While the first book was largely about internet fame, this one is mostly about the future of the internet and the possibilities of virtual reality and other technologies, especially the darker implications of the corporate internet and the influence it has over our lives.

There were a lot of interesting musings about the internet and technology and fame from all of the characters, and most of them were super compelling. Miranda's chapters were definitely my favorite because of her specific outlook on the whole thing (and I like the book a lot less when we lost Miranda's point of view for a while for plot reasons), though Maya is my favorite character and I think that Andy had the most compelling character arc.

My main problem with this book is Carl. In book one, I enjoyed the science fiction of it all, and I was excited to learn more about Carl. Maybe I shouldn't have been because I feel like all of the alien elements were simultaneously under-developed and over-explained. Some of Carl's monologuing kind of felt like Hank Green trying to justify his own narrative choices in the first book, and I didn't feel like that was necessary.

In the first book, it felt like April was just at the right place at the right time, and in this one, we learn that she was actually chosen much more deliberately by Carl. This ultimately isn't all that different from an algorithm seemingly randomly choosing certain people to become internet famous, but it definitely contributed to April and Carl being the least compelling characters in this book for me.

Also, one more spoilery note about Carl:

Since Carl doesn't actually make it to the end of the book, I didn't really like that they were a narrator. I know that there was an explanation for where all of their chapters came from and it wasn't actually an issue in-universe, but it still bothered me.

I did really enjoy this book on the whole, though, so here are some more random things I enjoyed:

Carl is officially nonbinary now and it's not because they're an alien. They just are.
I loved Maya and Miranda's conversations about sexuality. Really well done.
In general this book is much gayer than the first one and I always appreciate that.
April hates John Mayer.
SEIZE THE MEANS OF PRODUCTION!
The audiobook is excellent. Great use of multiple narrators, and all of the voice actors were perfect for their characters.

These books are more of their moment than almost anything else I've ever read. An Absolutely Remarkable Thing feels like an alternate version of 2020, which can't have been deliberate because it was published in 2019. A Beautifully Foolish Endeavor, however, knows that it's a pandemic book. It's specifically a book about post-pandemic life and readjusting to a world that has been changed and wants to pretend that it hasn't been. It'll be interesting to see how it ages.

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